Lazy, Hazy, Crazy, Cozy
by Rebecky-mo
Summary: Raoul's apartment has no AC. Thankfully, a buddy decides he can borrow his for a night. Tracks/Raoul pre-slash.


So, this is my first Transformers fic ever; upon re-watching G1 with my sister, Tracks and Raoul have kinda taken over my brain. Best human/robot team _ever. _I'm sure I'll be writing more with them, but here's this for now.

Originally written for the August Challenge over at Flesh_and_Steel over on LJ. Warnings for slight language, innuendo, and banter (though that's a given with these two.)

Transformers, Tracks and Raoul all belong to Hasbro

**Lazy, Hazy, Crazy, Cozy**

_"Alright folks, time for the Six O' Clock weather; we know what you're wanting to hear, and we wish we could give it to ya. But we've got bad news; nothin' but more of the hot stuff coming to us later this week, with tomorrow's high feeling like a blistering 109. For Monday, we've-"_

Surprise, surprise. Is it still news if everyone already knows about it?

_"-So try to stay inside, stay cool, and stay tuned to WTKU for the summer's best music. Here's one to get your weekend party goin'."_

_"Ole ole - ole ole_  
><em>Ole ole - ole ole"<em>

...Oh HELL no. They weren't seriously going to...

_"EE-Yessa Ha-ha_  
><em>Ee-yes girls<em>

_Me mind on fire - Me soul on fire - Feeling hot hot hot_  
><em>Party people - All around me feeling hot hot h..."<em>

Click.

"Assholes." Raoul grumbled, turning off the radio before flopping back onto his couch, hand swiping a bead of sweat from around his eyes and wiping it onto his shorts. He might as well have turned off the stupid fan on his table too, for all the good it was doing. What's the sense in blowing air around if all it was was _hot_ air?

Another freaking heatwave. This was the second one this summer, the last one only ending less than a month before; this one was already a week in, and seemed to show no signs of slowing down. The Bop Crew had decided on taking a break from the street performances for awhile, partly due to Pop Lock being a moron and getting himself a case of heat stroke earlier that week. Who the hell would be playing basketball for 4 hours in this weather?

People were staring to talk about this year compared to a couple years back, and worries about a repeat of the '77 blackout. Raoul remembered that night in July better than he'd like to. He been curled in bed clutching to his abuela, hearing the sounds of broken windows and sirens echoing in the air, the smell of smoke making his eyes sting...But they'd fixed the old electrical system, so it wouldn't happen again.

It wouldn't.

So all he had to worry about was not overdoing it at work, come home, and try not to melt into a Raoul-shaped puddle on his pull-out. No sweat.

...Dios. Bad pun. _Bad_ pun. Was his brain that fried? The latino groaned and draped an arm over his eyes, trying to focus on the creak of the fan moving, and not on how goddamn _hot_ he was right now...

He had no idea how long he lay there like that, only that the sound of his phone ringing snapped him out of his trance. His phone, which was on the wall of his kitchen. Meaning he had to get up and _move_.

Maybe they'd give up.

Three rings.

Then six.

Eight.

That's it; yelling at whoever was on the other side of the line was officially worth getting up for. He picked up the receiver on the 13th ring. "This had better be good, damn it."

"Well hello to you too" came a very familiar, haughty voice. "Did I pick a bad time?"

"Tracks!" The human couldn't help the smile that came to his face and leaned his back against the kitchen counter, hoping the open air would dry his back off a bit. "Long time, man. What's up?"

"Oh, the usual; keeping myself perfectly polished, rubbing it in Sunstreaker's face, stopping Decepticon plots here and there. You know how it goes." Raoul chuckled at that.

"Yeah, I think I heard about your last fight on the news yesterday. What was it, Madagascar...?"

"Mozambique. Madagascar's the island, Mozambique's on the mainland. We were fighting by the coastline, so now I've got to get all this saltwater and sand out of my chassis."

Typical Tracks. "Dude, do _not_ complain about hanging out by a beach to me right now; I'd take on Megatron if it meant I could have a nice, cool swim." Every public pool in the city had been packed for days now, and cash for a beach trip wasn't available anytime soon.

"You've already fought Megatron, with a paint can no less." Tracks reminded him. "I take it New York is still sweltering, then; how are you holding up?"

"Hey, you know me, I'm tough; takes more than a little hot weather to take me out." Liar.

"Liar. You humans get affected by temperature so easily, it amazes me you've lasted so long without internal cooling systems like we have." He sounds so proud at that last line, though Raoul couldn't tell if he was proud of human survival, or his own system design. Probably both, knowing the Corvette.

"That's what sweating is for, man. Besides, we've got A.C..."

"Actually, _they_ have air conditioning. _You_ have a fan that blows more hot air than Starscream does."

"A.C unit's are expensive, dude! I'm working on it...and it's not like I know anyone who's got it, either, so it's not just me." He probably wouldn't mooch off of them if they did, anyway. Both Rocksteady and Pop Lock had big families; one more body at their apartments was one body too many.

"Of course you do! What am I, spare parts?"

Well of course Tracks has A.C.. He was a car. Well, not _just_ a car, but anyway. "Y'know, I just might be desperate enough to deal with neck cramps for some cool air. 'Course, that does me a whole lot of good when you're all the way over in... " Wait; Raoul stopped talking. On a hunch, he turned and moved over to his kitchen window, looking down to the streets below. "...How long have you been down there, man?"

He heard the 'bot chuckle on the other end of the line. "Since about one minute after I called you. So, up for a sleepover? We can gossip, do each other's hair, giggle over the boys in this month's Tiger Beat magazine. Is it Michael on the cover again?..."

The human turned away from the window, hiding the stupid grin on his face. He couldn't help laughing into the receiver though; "Dumbass...give me about ten minutes, don't go anywhere." He heard a muffled 'Where am I going to go?' as he hung up, and after considering for a moment, headed over to the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later, Raoul walked out of his building's front door, hissing at the heat and the brightness of the sun as he walked towards the blue Corvette. As he opened his driver's seat door for him, Tracks noticed a slightly newer-than-usual pair of shorts and tank top, and his hair was damp and out of its usual ponytail. "You showered? How sweet that you still want to try and impress me!"

"Pssh, get over yourself; I didn't want you whining about the sweat smell in your interior all night. An' for your information, that was my third shower toda...whoa." Raoul peeked inside the door; the Autobot's usual interior seating was reconfigured, wheel and gearstick gone from sight, front and back seats completely flattened and formed together to make a makeshift leather-upholstered mattress. And were his windows_ tinted_? "You, uh...you redecorated."

"Never let it be said I wasn't fashionable _and_ functional." Tracks purred, and the heat must be getting to Raoul more than he thought. Heat stroke _did_ cause stomach flips like this, right? But the siren call of cool air blowing in his face beat out the weird feeling. He finally pulled himself through the doorway ("Hey, take off your shoes! I'm not a door mat!"), and settled in the center of the car cab, sitting with his legs crossed and looking around.

Well, this wasn't so bad, actually. Roomier than he thought it'd be, no neck cramps from the car seats, and the tinted windows kept people from seeing the...odd interior design. And blessed, blessed air conditioning. He finally turned towards Tracks' dashboard with a smirk. "Not too shabby buddy. How much you charging for rent?"

"Very funny."

"Who's joking? A couple posters, maybe a hot plate...plus, you're in way better shape than my apartment."

"Flatter me all you want, you're still not eating in me."

The latino rolled his eyes, and laid out diagonally on the cold blue leather. folding up one arm under his head. He sighed contentedly and shut his eyes for a moment; oh yeah, he could totally deal with this for the summer. "Man, I ought to sleep with you more ofte-" And just like that, the relaxed feeling dissipated as Raoul clamped a hand over his mouth, mentally cursing his mouth and the blush on his cheeks as Tracks burst into laughter over his speakers. _Jesus Christ_, what was _with_ him tonight? "I did _not_ mean it like that, damn it!"

The Corvette was still snickering "Sure you don't. Face it, you only want me for my framework."

Raoul growled and turned over on his stomach, burying his still-burning face into the upholstery in frustration. Okay, not his fault; his brain was obviously fried over-easy from the heat, like that stupid anti-drug commercial on TV. If he were in his right state of mind, he'd just be acting normal, instead of like some stupid schoolyard punk crushing on a girl. Right? Right.

"...Raoul, you're hot."

That finally got him to raise his head. "Why, thank you." Yes! Raoul gets back on the scoreboard, ladies and gents!

But of course Tracks didn't get flustered, damn him. "I'm being serious, Raoul; your body temperature hasn't gone down since you got inside, and it's higher than normal."

"What, really?" He rolled over onto his back again, this time pressing his hand to his forehead. Maybe he really _was_ feeling the heat; but he didn't feel like he had a fever. "How bad?"

"37.3 degrees celsius, 99.3 degrees fahrenheit to be exact. Have you felt dizzy? Or maybe...nauseous?" Raoul actually felt the Autobot's struts tense at last the word.

"Dude, chill, I'm _not_ gonna puke in you. And 99's not too bad a fever; I probably just overdid it at work or something."

"You're _working_ in this weather? You're insane!"

Maybe. "No, I'm _broke_. Bills don't take a vacation when things get hot, man." Hadn't they had this conversation already? He was sure he had. After a minute of silence, Raoul sighed and closed his eyes again. "Look, don't worry about me, alright? We're only working half-days right now, and if I chug any more water, I'm gonna start talking like Seaspray. I can take care of myself."

Still more silence, then, "Alright; but if your temperature goes up by even point-one degree by tomorrow, I'm taking you to a med-bay."

"S' a Hospital." He mumbled. This really did feel nice...

"Whatever. The point is, just because you _can_ take care of yourself doesn't mean you _will_, and...Raoul? Raoul?" No answer, save for the slow, even breathing of the human asleep on the makeshift bed, and the hum of his own fans. For what seemed like an eternity, that's the way it remained.

Finally, a ghostly grey hand appeared from the ether, gently brushing the dark waves of hair from the young man's face.

"Like I was saying" Tracks murmured, "it doesn't mean you will. Sometimes it's nice to have someone else to care for you..."

Raoul just shifted in his sleep, his cheek pressing a little firmer into the metal hand cupping it.

It was warm.


End file.
